The first is a brochure-style site for a revolutionary electric vehicle aimed at China and urban commuting. Redspace has crafted a stellar user experience online, that mirrors the wonderful user experience they’ve dreamed up for a problem affecting millions in China—wasted time and pollution related to commutes around China’s megacities. The site takes the user on an exciting journey in learning about Redspace’s unique vision for what life could be like for commuters, in a revolutionary car. The information architecture of the site is dead simple, and there is a minimalist interface with just enough interaction in place to effectively present an amazing story, told through video and animation, and very beautiful and readable flat-designed web pages. The site exhibits the highest level of artistic direction, and the technical implementation of the design into interactive equally exhibits the utmost attention to details. Have a look and enjoy a great example of just how fresh and exciting a cutting-edge web production can be.

Stop two on the inspiration train for this week is a piece of interactive found at culture.pl—a source for “daily fresh information on the most exciting Polish cultural events.” An immersive multimedia experience teaching about the Polish alphabet is what we are looking at, and what we see is a unique experience that leverages modern browser capabilities to deliver an experience that’s reminiscent of the very best Flash interactive found on the web a decade ago. Only here we have expertly-wielded native browser capabilities facilitating sharp, crisp animations that play with the Polish alphabet and allow a visitor to really have fun exploring it. While the main navigation is at once compelling, I’d venture to speculate that it might be a little frustrating to some users, with design cues that portray functionality that turns out to behave a little differently than long-established conventions would dictate. But playing around with the animated letters that appear in the production, where particle physics is utilized to give playful reaction to mouse input from the user, is on some level instinctively rewarding, and is simply loads of fun. It’s really great that these types of game-like interactions that were once more commonplace in Flash content on the web are popping up more widely in the landscape of modern standards-supporting browsers. This is an excellent example of how much fun learning can be on the web, thanks to the folks at culture.pl!